SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Peter Aronson. He's an award-winning journalist who's has been featured on NPR and Marketplace. He's also been a vice president in the corporate world. Now, his startup helps Mexico transform that notorious Mexican tap water into perfectly drinkable clean-tasting purified water. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Founder's Dilemma What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — HubSpot CRM Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Peter wished he took business courses and knew about the GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:12 – Nathan introduces Peter to the show 01:33 – People aren't supposed to drink the water in Mexico 01:41 – Mexico became the No. 1 consumer per capita in the world 02:08 – 70% of the consumed bottled water in Mexico is 5-gallon jug 02:21 – An average Mexican family is spending more for their water than on their broadband or landline 02:48 – Peter's company is Biluu 03:07 – Peter had been curious about the startup and business world 03:13 – Peter was the corporate vice president for US-Indian Joint Venture 03:30 – While in the Himalayas, Peter would boil his drinking water every day 03:35 – Eventually, Peter taught the people how to use a water purifier 04:00 – Peter searched how to properly filter water and what should be taken out 04:25 – Peter's wife is Mexican and he returned to Mexico 04:36 – Biluu is a for profit business, not a non-profit 04:44 – Biluu is currently doing direct sales and YouTube promotions 05:00 – The main challenge in Mexico is changing people's habits 05:12 – "We've had to establish trust" 06:12 – Biluu filtration system cost is $170 06:50 – For $170, they can get virtually unlimited purified drinking water for a year 06:58 – A cartridge will last for a year 07:11 – 1500 people are drinking Biluu's water 07:35 – Some of Biluu's filtration systems are in restaurants 07:53 – Biluu has sold around 100 units 08:10 – The previous water filters in Mexico weren't effective or scientifically proven 08:43 – 42% of Biluu's growth came from referrals 08:55 – Biluu isn't manufacturing by themselves 09:28 – Biluu has an exclusive license to the technology 09:39 – The deal is by volume commitment 09:57 – Biluu needs to maintain a 6-figure sales 10:14 – Biluu is totally self-funded 10:20 – Team size is 5 and all are based in Mexico City, Mexico 10:47 – Biluu is trying to look for brand ambassadors to reach out to people 11:06 – Biluu is also doing Facebook paid ads and Google AdWords 12:17 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It's not easy to change people's habits, but you HAVE to try—especially if it's for the better. Learning from a community can be a life changing experience. Find a brand ambassador who has a good online reputation and large following. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Alex Mehr. He's the founder of Zoosk, which filed to go public in 2014. His current venture is MentorBox, a unique and new self-help concept. Before that, he was an aerospace scientist at NASA. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I try at least 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "To take more risks" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:10 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show 01:43 – Zoosk announced to go public for $200M 02:24 – Zoosk decided to stay independent, so they didn't pursue going public 02:44 – When you go public, you make projections about the growth rate and what you want to do financially 03:05 – The expectations from the public market for tech companies who go public are different than those who do not 03:14 – Alex and the team didn't want the company to push hard for a quarter by quarter growth 03::50 – Zoosk was launched in 2007 04:00 – Alex and his co-founder split everything 50/50 04:21 – Alex and his co-founder have worked for 8 years and they never had a problem 04:40 – Alex and Shayan have different domain expertise and they respect each other's' domain expertise 05:30 – Zoosk has grown rapidly until 2014 05:36 – "But the company was not profitable" 06:40 – Alex still has his equity and is part of the board 07:36 – Zoosk is growing again 07:53 – MentorBox is a self-education self-improvement education box 08:07 – Alex has always been a book reader his whole life 08:33 – Alex would gift his friends books all the time 08:43 – 10% of the population's primary method of learning is reading 08:50 – There are 4 methods of learning: auditory, visual, reading, and kinesthetic 09:20 – The idea of MentorBox is a subscription for business books that Alex thinks everybody should read per month 09:38 – MentorBox makes the information concise so that you can study the main concepts in 10 minutes 09:46 – MentorBox delivers in 4 formats 10:28 – Tai Lopez is Alex's co-founder 10:41 – 7 years ago, Tai and Alex met at an online gaming conference 11:05 – It turned out that Tai reads 1 book a day 11:40 – Tai and Alex have a 50/50 deal with MentorBox 12:03 – Alex had a landing page to test MentorBox 12:19 – They had a video that explained the product 12:27 – Tai has a large social media following so he tested his ad on his social media 13:05 – In the first test, they were able to sell $80K worth of product 13:22 – MentorBox is priced at $89 a month 13:50 – MentorBox's retention 14:14 – MentorBox's space is education subscription 14:40 – Average retention in the space 15:12 – Tai and Alex knew that MentorBox would be a sustainable business 15:38 – LTV and CAC are both high 16:18 – MentorBox also relies on word-of-mouth marketing 16:37 – The cost per box drops depending on the volume 17:26 – MentorBox buys from distributors and publishers directly 17:48 – MentorBox is looking at getting directly from the author 18:18 – The number of books MentorBox has bought from Ryan Holiday 19:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The public market's expectations for companies that go public are very different and can put on additional pressures that, otherwise, wouldn't exist. Do what you love AND share what you love doing to other people. Be a risk-taker – you'll learn more that way. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Sean Ellis. He's the founder and CEO of GrowthHackers.com, he coined the term "growth hacking" in 2010 after using it to ignite growth for Dropbox, Eventbrite, LogMeIn and Lookout. He also founded and sold customer insights company Qualaroo, growing it to millions of dollars in recurring revenue. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Peep Laja Favorite online tool? — The Calm App Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished my 20-year old self knew things are going to be pretty good" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Sean to the show 02:03 – Sean speaks at The Capital Factory in Austin, Texas 02:07 – Sean's talk was about viral coefficients and why it's important to decrease the time of the original share to really drive growth 02:50 – If you don't have a lot value at the foundation of the growth, it's hard to make your business sustainable 02:56 – Sean tries to understands the value of the product first, then goes backwards from there 03:16 – Sean used the referral program for Dropbox 03:30 – Sean, together with the group, came up with the idea of giving away free storage for referrals 03:45 – Sean's friend tested a double-sided referral program prior to Dropbox 03:53 – Sean's friend is James Siminoff, founder of Ring and the previously the CEO of PhoneTag 04:45 – Sean provides advice on viral coefficients 04:55 – In the case of DropBox—"Referrals were strong before the referral program went in place" 05:12 – Understand what the motivation is for people to do refer 05:18 – Think about every step in the process; for example, what's the prompt that gets people to share? 05:42 – Optimize all the steps of the referral process 05:47 – The more you have qualitative and quantitative insights about what's happening, you're going to be more informed in the tests that you are running 06:41 – Eventbrite didn't have an incentive, but just a natural viral product in itself 07:18 – Eventbrite helps companies sell tickets 07:30 – Eventbrite doesn't only offer a convenient experience but also good SEO, social integration, and other factors that will help you sell tickets 08:00 – Sean worked for LogMeIn's marketing for 5 years 08:05 – LogMeIn is now a $5B company 08:07 – "Natural word-of-mouth was huge with LogMeIn" 08:10 – By the time Sean left LogMeIn, 80% of the users were coming in through word-of-mouth 08:15 – LogMeIn was spending more than $1M monthly with a 3-month payback on acquiring customers 08:21 – "Value drives word-of-mouth" 08:35 – At first, the majority of LogMeIn's users didn't really use the product 09:25 – The CEO and whole team worked together to find out the problem with the customer experience 09:55 – LogMeIn has always been cash flow positive 10:13 – Look up how Sean runs questionnaires in his Youtube videos and slideshows 10:31 – Qualaroo is about customer insights 10:45 – Sean acquired Qualaroo in 2012 10:49 – Qualaroo was acquired from KissMetrics 10:53 – Qualaroo was a side business and Sean was an advisor for it 11:08 – Sean built Qualaroo to millions of dollars of recurring revenue and sold it last year 11:45 – Sean bought it for less than a million dollars 12:00 – The revenue of Qualaroo was less than a hundred thousand dollars 12:25 – Qualaroo was acquired by Xenon 13:01 – Jonathan Siegel owns Xenon 13:14 – Sean wanted to sell Qualaroo and wasn't trying to get top dollar for it 13:57 – Sean had a 7-figure advance on the book, so he's not losing money 14:09 – Sean has signed with Crown Business 14:29 – Sean has self-published a book before 14:49 – Sean's background and Growth Hackers allowed him to get a great deal with Crown Business 15:00 – Sean is the guy who came up with the term "growth hacking" 15:09 – There are already a lot of publishers who approached Sean to write a book about growth hacking 15:22 – Morgan Brown is Sean's co-author 15:47 – Morgan and Sean hired an editor to write the proposal 16:10 – Sean's agent is Lisa DiMona 16:30 – The process is getting an agent to invest in your book, they help you with the proposal and they pitch your book 17:21 – Sean's plan to make the book a successful one 17:26 – First is to gain momentum to get on the New York Times' Bestseller List 17:43 – The weekly sales is what will determine whether you make the list 18:05 – "If you get on the list, then it's a lot easier to stay on the list" 18:32 – People's perception on growth is often a bit flawed 18:45 – Growth hacking is more about testing stuff and doubling down when something works 19:04 – Sean has some copies of his book for his Microsoft presentation 19:20 – Sean also has some copies for different companies 19:31 – Sean offers ticket bundles for Growth Hackers Conference in May, in LA 19:37 – Growth University's growth master training course has bundled with book sales 19:43 – Sean is running bundled ads, too 19:51 – Sean is getting sub $50 sales on their course with the book bundled 20:51 – Sean is currently at a ConversionXL conference 21:05 – Peep Laja was on Episode 620, and he is the founder of ConversionXL 21:37 – Sean didn't commit to buying any books 22:35 – Why should people buy this book rather than the other growth hacking books? 22:39 – "Ryan Holiday's book was awesome to bring attention to growth hacking" 22:47 – There hasn't really been a guide book to what do you do as a team, especially for bigger companies who want to replicate what Facebook or Uber has done 23:12 – Marketing isn't that hard, but you need cultural change, cross-functional coordination, and collaboration 23:31 – Hacking Growth has the methods for what you need to drive growth at its foundation 23:44 – It is powerful and people need help 24:06 – Crossing the Chasm provides observations regarding the growth process 24:20 – The main difference between this book and Sean's is that it doesn't tell you how to organize your team to exploit that growth situation 24:32 – "We're not just telling you the fundamentals of how growth works, we're telling you how to run a growth process across a team..." 25:02 – "You need to have a very integrated coordinated team and the best time to build it in your business is early, when the culture is malleable to do it" 27:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Regarding viral coefficients, the more you have qualitative and quantitative insights about what's happening in the referral and sharing process, the more informed your tests will be. Growth hacking is more about testing stuff and doubling down when something works. You NEED a very integrated, coordinated team—the best time to build this into your business is early on, when the culture is still malleable. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Kenny Ewan. He is in charge of the overall strategic direction for WeFarm where he oversees the day-to-day activities of the business. After graduating, he spent 7 years in Peru running an international NGO, specializing in work with indigenous communities. Kenny played the lead role in developing WeFarm, before launching it as a startup in 2015. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Chaos Monkeys What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I'm happy to let him make mistakes" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Kenny to the show 01:49 – WeFarm is a growth focus model 02:29 – WeFarm offers their services to farmers 02:37 – WeFarm leads farmers to the sellers and WeFarm will take a small transaction commission 03:00 – WeFarm offers information in the space 03:08 – A farmer in Kenya who has no internet access can ask WeFarm a question, through SMS, for free 03:30 – 10-15 people in WeFarm's network will try to answer the question 03:45 – The people who answer want to share their knowledge about farming 04:12 – WeFarm has generated revenue, but they're still on pre-profit 04:20 – WeFarm just closed a seed round for $1.7M 04:27 – WeFarm started as an Impact project for Google and they won 04:36 – They used the prize as capital 04:42 – The prize was £500K 05:04 – Team size is 20 and is still growing; they're around the globe 05:41 – WeFarm uses radio to connect with more farmers 05:51 – WeFarm partnered with radio stations and invited farmers on 06:00 – 4-5K people were joining WeFarm in just an hour 06:12 – WeFarm also partners with businesses where farmers buy 06:45 – WeFarm currently has 140K farmers on their platform 06:55 – WeFarm measures activity by the number of users who actively contribute every month 07:55 – WeFarm is also available online 08:15 – WeFarm has a super active marketplace 08:32 – WeFarm doesn't incentivize people who answer inquiries, just like Quora 08:50 – WeFarm's roadmap this year 09:00 – WeFarm has 20 people 09:30 – WeFarm already has a couple of commercial contacts with a major retailer in UK 09:48 – "We have validated our revenue sources" 10:00 – 2017 target revenue is around $50K 11:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: A business does NOT always have to be revenue focused; helping people can be a goal in and of itself. We have a responsibility to help guide those who need it and access those who still do not have the internet. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, but be sure to learn from them. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Tyler Tate. He's the CEO of Crema.co, the coffee market place. Previously, he co-founded TwigKit, which is an enterprise search software and was the first design lead at Nutshell, which is a SaaS CRM platform. In each case, he used product strategy and design thinking to play its part in envisioning, designing and building products from the ground up. He's also co-authored the book called Designing the Search Experience which Morgan Kaufmann published in 2013. He's spoken at numerous conferences. While at TwigKit, he consulted for organizations such as The Financial Times, Thomson-Reuters, Qualcomm, Vodafone, ITV, Rolls-Royce, BASF and Gemalto, helping them design search-driven applications. He's originally from Alabama, went to University of Kentucky, and spent 7 years in UK. He's also lived in Seattle and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Tyler prefers reading blogs at the moment What CEO do you follow? – Michael Dubin Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Tyler wished he realized earlier how important a network is Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces Tyler to the show 02:41 – In TwigKit, Tyler was selling an expensive software product to large companies 03:00 – Tyler learned that he'd rather do something that is more marketing-driven than sales-driven—something that is more consumer-driven than enterprise 03:14 – Tyler's realization in switching to a coffee company from a SaaS business 03:28 – At Nutshell, Tyler was the first design hire 03:33 – Nutshell has 3 founders and a CTO 03:53 – Tyler, together with the whole team, was able to build something from the ground up 04:01 – Tyler had some equity in the business 04:38 – Tyler had put in $15K to Crema 05:05 – Tyler sold his equities back to TwigKit and Nutshell 06:03 – Tyler started working with Crema early 2015 06:08 – Tyler did a Kickstarter campaign and made $25K 06:19 – Tyler closed and had an Angel round 06:25 – A total of $325K was raised and $150K came from 500 startups 06:48 – 500 startups had a deal of $150K for 6% which is a standard deal 07:21 – Crema is a marketplace for coffee drinkers to subscribe to roast-to-order beans 07:35 – Crema has a platform fee on every order 07:43 – When you buy $18 worth of coffee, Crema takes a $9 platform fee and the other $9 goes to the roaster 07:58 – The price that you pay is almost similar to retail price and the roaster price is above their typical wholesale price 08:15 – The total price includes shipping and other fees 09:00 – $9 is a flat fee no matter the order size 09:46 – Crema's concept is a single-origin emphasis 10:12 – Crema does the co-production for the roasters 10:24 – Crema has a storytelling team that write journalistic write-ups for their website 10:43 – Team size 11:06 – Crema currently has 15 roasters 11:11 – With a total of 60 types of coffee beans 11:27 – Crema had 750 customers in January 2017 11:30 – Generated $17K on the platform 11:44 – Crema's growth is 28% month over month 11:48 – "We're targeting something like 10x growth" 12:07 – Crema's growth metric is based on GMV and revenue 13:55 – Average cart value is $17 for a typical purchase 14:08 – Each box of coffee is shipped individually 14:43 – A customer spends an average of $23 a month on the website 15:05 – Crema started in Kickstarter in October 15:13 – Crema has been generating organic traffic since then 15:48 – Crema has spent $5K for Facebook paid ads 16:06 – CAC is around $20-25 to convert website visitors to subscribers 17:02 – Crema ran surveys about people's coffee drinking preferences 17:29 – Crema had sample packs for new customers allowing them to try 4 different types of coffee 20:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Shifting from B2B to B2C is a breeze when you really know who you want to target. Great storytelling can engage consumers and connect them to the product. Do not hesitate to meet people, move around, and build a network for yourself. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jon Ferrara. He's in CRM—a relationship management entrepreneur and noted speaker about social media's effects on sales marketing. He's reimagined the CRM by building a simply smarter social sales and marketing platform. His most recent venture is called Nimble.com. It's the first CRM that works for you by building the updated contact data for you and then works with you everywhere you work. He's best known as the co-founder of GoldMine Software, one of the early pioneers in the Salesforce automation and customer relationship management in software categories for SMBs. He's recently been recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Social CEOs and Top 10 Social Sales people in the world. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Buffer Do you get 8 hours of sleep? — 7-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Not to sweat shit so much" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:17 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show 02:13 – There was no Outlook, CRM or Salesforce when Jon had the idea of GoldMine 02:31 – Jon started on $5K with no bank loans and VC 02:35 – Jon ran GoldMine for 10 years, had 5M customers around the globe, sold it and retired at 40 02:44 – GoldMine was a software platform 02:55 – GoldMine started as a floppy disk until it became a CD 03:28 – Jon started GoldMine in 1989 and sold it in 1999 03:38 – GoldMine passed $70M in annual revenue, with 250 team members worldwide 04:00 – ARR wasn't necessary before when it comes to valuation 04:22 – Jon sold GoldMine for $125M in cash with no strings attached 04:55 – A year after GoldMine was sold, Jon was diagnosed with a head tumor 05:07 – "The most important thing you have around you is your health, next is your family, then your passion and business" 05:19 – Jon was 41 when they found the tumor 05:27 – "We are on this planet to grow our souls" 05:51 – After the tumor, Jon spent next 10 years of his life with his family and friends, adding value to people 06:15 – Jon got into photography and worked as the photographer for USC football for 10 years 06:42 – "You need to be your own advocate" 06:56 – Jon found a doctor who developed the technology to have a radiation beam reach the center of your head without touching any vital nerves 07:17 – The tumor disappeared after 7 weeks of radiation treatment 07:42 – The radiation is like burning the seed inside the watermelon without burning the watermelon's skin 08:18 – Jon started in social media in 2006-2008 08:33 – Jon saw that relationship managers are contact managers 08:58 – Jon looked at CRM and saw the gap 09:07 – You have to use salespeople to use CRM 09:08 – "That's why they're called salesforce because you force salespeople to use it" 09:27 – Nimble's team was formed in 2010, Alpha in 2011, and they turned the paywall in 2013 09:36 – "Just like with GoldMIne, I was early to the idea of an intelligent social relationship manager that works for you" 09:57 – Business is social and life is social 10:11 – First year revenue 10:21 – Jon got their first customer for Nimble the same way he got their first customer for GoldMine: 10:36 – Jon had a trusted advisor for his prospect 10:51 – Jon got his first $50K revenue in GoldMine from resellers 10:56 – Jon grew the $50K by mobilizing writers who write about technology and business 11:10 – In 2009-2011, there was no reseller because everything was cloud 11:27 – Jon looked for influencers 11:36 – Jon put in his own $3M to the company 11:48 – Jon also got some cash from Mark Cuban, Jason Calacanis and others 12:05 – Jon's money went to the company's capitalization 12:20 – Nimble currently has 100K customers and 10K paying companies 12:31 – An average of 3 seats per company 12:36 – Nimble is a SaaS business and is generating 80K website visitors with zero marketing 12:43 – Trial to paid conversion is 20% 13:05 – Nimble started at $15 per user per month 13:08 – It recently rolled out to $25 and will have $45 and $65 buckets with a $99 mark automation add on 13:16 – "Sales and marketing should never have been split apart" 14:07 – $200K average MRR 14:15 – Gross churn is about 3% 14:22 – "We provide a lot of value and satisfaction to our customers" 14:32 – Nimble just rolled with Microsoft Outlook mobile by providing 40M handsets for free 15:04 – CAC is really small because they don't have a large team 15:25 – You don't need to spend or overspend in order to build a company 15:35 – It is great to find people who want to grow with your help 15:42 – Rather than hiring a sales guy, Jon would rather hire someone who truly cares about the customer experience 16:16 – Jon's team is based in Santa Monica with remote workers in USA and Ukraine 16:53 – 2017 target revenue 18:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Engage with your customers and add value – don't always think about the sales. Share your passion with people on a daily basis, don't be afraid to bare your soul and make those connections. You don't need to spend more to build a business – find people who are willing to grow the business with you. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Ben Cantey. He's a San Francisco entrepreneur and has a passion about solving problems and changing lives through technology. He teaches entrepreneurship and lean methodology at universities and high schools on his free time. He's launching some bad-ass technology with a handful of math geniuses in a parking space. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Rough Riders What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Yesware Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 8 1/2 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Execute faster" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show 01:51 – Park Evergreen revolutionizes the way parking is sold and managed at airports 01:55 – Airports currently use a whole stack of services, suppliers and contractors that are outdated 02:15 – Park Evergreen uses geolocation technology to bring physical parking online 02:25 – Travelers can find a reserve pay per parking through Park Evergreen's app 02:35 – Park Evergreen is somehow a marketplace 02:49 – Park Evergreen is more focused on the traveler's experience 02:54 – Ben and his co-founders came from the consulting space 03:10 - Park Evergreen started out with customers who wanted to find paid street parking 03:23 – Park Evergreen currently has a couple of deals 03:30 – Park Evergreen started growing their revenue in June 03:54 – Ben is just happy that they got a great product market fit 04:03 – Most USA airports are now going into modernization projects 04:44 – There's an interesting balance between travelers who prefer to leave their cars and those who prefer to just take an Uber car 04:53 – Park Evergreen's average customers are business travelers who are gone for only a couple of days 05:18 – The airport modernization includes parking expansion 05:54 – Travels tend to get cheaper each year and more and more people are travelling 06:02 – The millennials demographic has the most frequent business and pleasure trips 06:28 – The parking growth is growing 4-5% per airport, per year 06:34 – Park Evergreen was founded in 2016 06:43 – Park Evergreen didn't want to compete with parking meters and pay machines 07:08 – Park Evergreen was making a couple of thousand a month 07:22 – Park Evergreen made $15K topline 07:33 – Park Evergreen's biggest cost was for CAC 08:02 – "It's a tough market, people are used to their options" 08:10 – Park Evergreen pivoted because they're tired of their mobile apps parking solutions 08:18 – SpotHero and ParkWhiz are the biggest in the space 08:28 – Park Evergreen has raised $150K from 500 startups 08:43 – Team size is 5 09:01 – The equity is divided by 5 co-founders 09:19 – Park Evergreen is bootstrapped and the 2 co-founders have been building everything for free 09:25 – Ben is in charge of closing deals and doing the strategy 09:40 – It's a balanced team 10:03 – The team had some contractual work on the side and some have full-time jobs 11:11 – Park Evergreen charges a flat fee per space that they manage per month 11:39 – The average is $100 per space 11:55 – The average top 10 US airports manage 18K parking spaces 12:00 – Some double or triple 18K 12:10 – Park Evergreen's market size in terms of market space is over 4M 12:50 – When a traveler books his flight, he books his parking space, too 13:06 – Park Evergreen shows the traveler 2 hours before his flight, the fastest route to the airport and to the parking space 13:22 – Park Evergreen can tell you exactly how long it will take a traveler to go from one place to another around the airport 13:46 – "I want our travelers to know when they look at their phones in the morning, before they leave their house, what time will they arrive at the gate, ready to get on the plane" 14:20 – Park Evergreen started their user acquisition in March for the contracts 14:30 – Park Evergreen is using SMS initially 15:08 – "The only way to park is to use Park Evergreen" 15:18 – Park Evergreen is doing 500 spaces for their initial pilot 15:35 – Park Evergreen's contracts are on an expansion plan 16:16 – As soon as you get to the airport, you can get a Park Evergreen ticket with a code that you will use to text 16:45 – You can pay Park Evergreen ahead of time via text 18:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Airport parking is a great space to be in at the moment because of the modernization projects that are on the way. To stay competitive in this space, provide the best traveler experience that you can. It's can be quite difficult to broaden people's understanding of their options, but that does NOT mean you shouldn't try. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. 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Jim Sweeney. He's the CEO and one of the founders of Clarify Medical. He began his entrepreneurial journey at Sharp Hospital where he worked full-time delivering hospital supplies while still in high school. He then spent 3 years in the US Army Medical Corps where he ran a remote, medical service dispensary serving 2500 families in Germany. He received a degree in business from San Diego State University. James has founded 12 medical companies including Caremark, Caps, Corum, Bridge Medical, CardioNet and co-founded Owned Outcomes. He's also led a successful leveraged buyout or LBO with McGaw Labs which he took public and is now owned by BBraun. His financing history includes raising venture capital and expansion capital for his ideas leading to over $25B in exit values of companies he founded. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Zero to One What CEO do you follow? – David Hale Favorite online tool? — N/A Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Between 4-6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Jim wished he knew "that the government would have the amount of influence on health care that they have, today" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:49 – Nathan introduces Jim to the show 02:53 – Clarify Medical has a first-mover advantage in the dermatology space 03:00 – They have well-established treatments for various skin diseases 03:17 – They've developed a device that will enable people to self-treat at home, using their smartphones 03:33 – The device will be launched directly to the patients 03:40 – The device is called Clarify Mobile UVB treatment system 03:59 – There are over 33M Americans who suffer from skin disease 04:21 – The device can be connected through the smartphone 04:51 – Jim has raised a little over $2B in venture capital 04:55 – Jim had an exit value of $25B for his companies 05:06 – There are exits via IPO and sales 05:40 – Jim shares why he decided to have an LBO with McGaw Labs 05:56 – Jim had been an employee of the company so he acquired the company with prior knowledge of what their issues were 06:26 – The deal was in mid-October 1990 06:33 – The company's valuation 07:27 – Jim bought the company with his friends 07:47 – The Clarify Mobile UVB treatment system device will sell for $600 or can be leased for $39 per month 08:15 – Jim expects to have long relationships with their patients because some of their skin diseases are life-long conditions 08:30 – If the device didn't exist, patients would spend $100 annually for therapeutic drugs which have various side-effects 09:30 – Obamacare has allowed Clarify to go directly to the consumers 09:43 – Jim thinks the total costs of Obamacare haven't been exposed 10:35 – Jim expects more medical companies will go directly to consumers 10:42 – The bad news is that people will spend more directly from their pockets than in the past 10:50 – The good news is doctors are now seen as customers 11:11 – The solution for healthcare is for patients to be more engaged with their healthcare providers 11:33 – Clarify will start generating revenue from the device later this year 11:36 – Jim has already raised $6M and is still looking to raise another $12-15M in the next few months 12:00 – Jim doesn't have a scientific explanation on how he came up with the pre-money valuation 12:22 – All of Clarify's financing at this point is from their pre series A round 12:43 – Team size is 12 but will double in the next few months 12:50 – The company is based in San Diego 13:00 – Jim can't disclose the cost of making the device 13:43 – The cost will carry a respectable margin 13:47 – The app will be sold for $9.99 per month, on a subscription basis 14:25 – Jim believes that Clarify's valuation will be into the billions for IPO exits 15:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: More healthcare providers are now going directly to consumers and are skipping the third-party service. Knowing a company by heart will make it easier for you to make a fair valuation. Making your employees a share holder of your company will definitely change their attitude towards the job, leading to a more successful company. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Bill Brice. He's currently the CEO of AlphaTrust Corporation which he launched in 1998, to capitalize on the sustained long-term shift from paper-based document businesses to fully electronic document processes. Bill is considered as one of the industry's pioneers and he's a leading authority of electronic signatures, especially around generating real economic impact and brand enhancement. He served as chairman of the board for the Electronic Signature and Records Association and is currently a member of the board of directors. Before his electronic signatures company, he started his entrepreneurial career, when in college, by co-founding Brice Foods and is chairman and CEO. He grew the company into a global enterprise best known for its chain of frozen yogurt stores. The company grew into 1500 franchise locations and 43 countries with manufacturing operations on 4 different continents. For his work, he was awarded as The Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the International Franchise Association, which is the world's oldest and largest organizations representing franchising worldwide. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — HubSpot Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "At that time, I wished I would know what happened with the internet before it happened" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:23 – Nathan introduces Bill to the show 02:36 – Bill was based in Dallas and that's where he started his yogurt company 02:57 – Bill's was the first company to bring frozen yogurt in Texas 03:15 – Frozen yogurt was first popularized in California 03:32 – Bill wanted to pioneer the first operational chain selling frozen yogurt in Texas 03:39 – Bill has turned to franchises and now has 1500 franchise locations 04:00 – The first franchise was $150K, $20K franchise fee and 5-6% royalties 04:34 – The frozen yogurt company had $150M in revenue 04:50 – In 1996, the franchise sold because someone wanted to buy it 05:09 – Franchise valuation is similar with other businesses 05:31 – The franchise was cash flow multiple 05:42 – 6-10x was the best multiple 06:15 – Bill was making a lot of software on the side of the yogurt business 06:53 – Bill was annoyed by the amount of paperwork a business had to go through 07:16 – A computer was about automating business 07:35 – Bill had a completely different team for his yogurt company than his e-signature company 07:41 – AlphaTrust is completely privately owned and funded 08:00 – Being privately funded allows them to focus on what they are doing 08:20 – AlphaTrust is in a specialized segment of a market 09:10 – AlphaTrust started on the enterprise businesses in the late 90s 09:24 – Some of AlphaTrust's clients are General Motors, ADP and AT&T 09:36 – Some of the big companies have millions of documents processed yearly 09:42 – AlphaTrust specializes in the high performance processing of documents 09:52 – AlphaTrust's customers still deploy and embed their software on premise 10:12 – AlphaTrust also operates cloud systems for their customers, but they support the plan and model the customers want 10:38 – The pro-side of AlphaTrust is quite small 10:53 – It accounts for only 10-15% of the revenue 10:56 – The rest of the revenue comes from licenses 11:50 – Average initial contract value is $50K-$500K 12:00 – Some of the customers pay for perpetual licenses 12:40 – AlphaTrust currently has 300 large enterprises 13:10 – Team size is 20 13:22 – AlphaTrust does direct sales, but they also have partner channels 13:46 – AlphaTrust has 20-30 specialists around the world who are part-timers 14:36 – AlphaTrust is happy with how they're doing at the moment 14:59 – Bill MIGHT sell the company to Salesforce if an offer comes 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The franchise business is the same as any other business – even when it comes down to the valuation. Working with big enterprises can set you apart in a saturated space. Saying "yes" to an acquisition isn't a terrible idea; instead, it's just a good way to exit. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Tobyn Sowden. He's the CEO of Redbrick, the second fastest growing software company in Canada and the birthplace of a product called Shift. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — InVision Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I would tell myself technical, all the way" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:39 – Nathan introduces Tobyn to the show 02:00 – Profit Guide named Redbrick as the second fastest software company in Canada, by measuring revenue growth 02:25 – Profit Guide measured a whole 5 year period 02:30 – Redbrick had $200K revenue in 2010 and $10-20M in 2015 03:00 – Redbrick was launched in 2010 03:15 – Redbrick started from an app distribution perspective 03:38 – Redbrick has developed their own tools to track 04:20 – Redbrick's main software is Deskmetrics, which is integrated into Shift 04:31 – Deskmetrics currently has 500K active users 05:00 – Not all who downloads are active users 05:08 – The number of downloads are tracked 05:34 – SDK is a software development kit 05:59 – Deskmetrics provides consulting services 06:06 – Facebook is one of Deskmetrics' sources for customer acquisition 06:40 – Redbrick is currently spending around $30K for Facebook paid acquisition 06:54 – Redbrick is working with a team on Facebook and is committed to growing their spending into millions of dollars for growth 07:33 – Tobyn shares the idea of Shift 08:07 – Shift had a preview in September and people liked it 08:12 – Shift allows you to switch around your Gmail and google accounts 08:51 – Tobyn increased their team size and hired more developers 09:08 – Shift is a SaaS business with $20/year subscription fee 09:31 – Shift primarily uses Facebook for advertising 09:49 – Shift has around 30K installs and 10K active users 10:00 – Shift's free-to-paid conversion rate is around 4-5% 10:23 – Shift is 3-months old 10:48 – Tobyn needed to decide if they will launch Shift on December 20th or wait until 2nd week of January 11:16 – Shift is doing great at the moment and there's definitely a market for it 11:40 – Tobyn shares why they decided that Shift be a desktop download 12:53 – Tobyn wants to avoid integrations that will make Shift look like a browser 13:15 – Redbrick has 3 parts: the app distribution side, Deskmetrics and Shift 13:35 – The app distribution side is the major revenue stream 13:45 – Tobyn believes that their path is the app distribution side 14:16 – Team size is 37 and they're based in Victoria BC in Vancouver, Canada 14:31 – There are small teams in Poland and Brazil 15:12 – Deskmetrics is primarily a desktop software analytics platform 16:15 – An average customer pays $500 monthly 16:36 – Tobyn was charging per number of users, but they changed it 17:14 – Deskmetrics was launched in 2016 17:45 – Redbrick has a lot of predictive models that they used in terms of CAC 19:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Facebook is one of the best places, at the moment, for paid advertising. You can always go and develop more products, but recognize when it's wise to stick to the path you're already on. Charging per head can at times restrict your customers from using your product to its fullest potential. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives